Ukraine has recaptured a village near the eastern city of Lysychansk, in a small but symbolic victory that means Russia is no longer in full control of the Luhansk region, one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key war targets. Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said Ukraine’s armed forces were under “total control” of Bilohorivka. “It is a suburb of Lysychansk. Soon we will sweep these scum out of there with a broom,” he said. “Step by step, centimeter by centimeter, we will free our entire land from the invaders.” Ukrainian coroners have so far exhumed 146 bodies, mostly civilians, at the mass grave site near Izium in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said on Monday. Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said the exhumed bodies included two children. The Kremlin has denied allegations that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province. Leaders of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic were beginning to panic, Haidai claimed. There have been many reports of gangs seizing men on the street and sending them to the army, while mobile communications and the internet have been blocked to prevent people from learning about Moscow’s military failures, he claimed. The leader of the Moscow-backed administration in Donbas has called for urgent referendums to make the region part of Russia. Denis Pushilin, head of the Moscow-based separatist administration in Donetsk, called on his fellow separatist leader in Luhansk to combine efforts to prepare a referendum on joining Russia. “Our actions must be synchronized,” Poussin said in a video posted on social media on Monday. The pace of Ukrainian forces’ advance in the northeast had thrown Russian forces into a “panic,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight address. Zelensky said he is now focusing on “speed” in the liberated areas. “The speed at which our troops are moving. The speed in restoring normal life,” he said. Russian troops struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region early Monday, but its reactors were undamaged and operating normally, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said. An explosion occurred 300 meters away from the reactors and damaged the power plant buildings shortly after midnight, Energoatom said in a statement. The attack also damaged a nearby hydroelectric station and transmission lines. Ukrainian officials say 200 Russian soldiers were killed in an attack on Sunday when a rocket hit a former bus shelter where they were stationed in the frontline town of Svatove. According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia has failed to send reinforcements. It is now under pressure and vulnerable to a further counterattack, the thinktank said. Ukraine’s armed forces said troops crossed the Oskil River over the weekend, marking another major milestone in the counteroffensive in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. The river flows south into the Siversky Donets, which crosses the Donbas, the main focus of Russia’s invasion. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could cause a long-term rise in grain prices by 7% and increase greenhouse gas emissions if production elsewhere in the world expands to cover any shortages, according to a study published in Nature Food. Russia and Ukraine together export about 28% of the world’s wheat supply. A court in rebel-held Luhansk has sentenced two officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to 13 years in prison on charges of treason. OSCE chairman Zbigniew Rau condemned the “unjustified” detention of the mission’s members since the outbreak of war, calling it “nothing but pure political theater … inhumane and disgusting.”
Updated at 06.33 BST Important events Show only key events Please enable JavaScript to use this feature Urgent calls by Russian-backed authorities in the occupied regions of Luhansk and Donetsk for referendums on joining Russia show that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is causing panic among proxy forces and some Kremlin decision-makers, the Institute said in its report. for the Study of War. last report. The thinktank also said the counter-offensive was eroding morale in Russian units previously considered elite, with intercepted documents showing Russian soldiers making repeated calls to be dismissed due to “persistent physical and moral exhaustion”. Destroyed buildings, captured Russian equipment and the grim work of examining the mass burial site near Izium – these are some of the latest images from Ukraine. Aftermath of the bombing of Kadiivka in the Luhansk region on 19 September. Photo: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters A Ukrainian soldier with captured Russian tanks near the town of Izium. Photo: Gleb Garanich/ReutersA member of a Ukrainian team working at the mass burial site in Izium takes a break. Photo: Gleb Garanich/Reuters A top Russian security official said during a visit to China that the Kremlin views strengthening ties with Beijing as a top policy goal, the AP reports. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the national security council chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, described “strengthening the comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation with Beijing as an unconditional priority of Russia’s foreign policy.” Patrushev is one of Putin’s closest associates. Speaking during a meeting with Guo Shengkun, a top official of the Communist Party of China, he said “under the current circumstances, our countries must show even greater readiness for mutual support and development of cooperation.” Patrushev’s office said in a terse statement after the talks in the Chinese city of Nanping that the sides agreed to “expand intelligence exchanges to counter extremism and foreign efforts to undermine the constitutional order of both countries in order to derail independent policies of Russia and China serving their national interests”.
The war in Ukraine will dominate the agenda of the UN summit
With the UN holding its first general debate since the start of the pandemic in New York this week, the Guardian’s world affairs editor Julian Borger and diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour have prepared this preview. The UN general assembly summit this week will be dominated by a struggle – between the US and its allies on one side and Russia on the other – for global support over the fate of Ukraine as the global south struggles to stop the conflict from overshadowing the existential threats of hunger and climate crisis. With the return to fully face-to-face general debate, presidents and prime ministers will converge on New York, many of them direct from London, where diplomacy began on the sidelines of the Queen’s funeral. Russia is currently in retreat on the battlefield and in the battle for world hearts and minds over the fate of Ukraine. The general assembly voted 101-7 with 19 abstentions to allow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to deliver a pre-recorded speech on video, granting him an exemption from the requirement that speakers appear in person. India, a longtime ally of Moscow that tends to abstain from votes on Ukraine, voted for Zelensky. The vote came on the same day that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly rebuked Vladimir Putin, telling him that “now is not the time for war,” when they appeared together at a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin said he was aware of Indian “concerns”, repeating what he had said the day before about China. The weekly session of United Nations general assembly meetings and leaders’ speeches begins as mass graves are discovered after the Russian retreat from the Ukrainian city of Izium. You can read the full story here: Security fears have almost certainly led Russia’s Black Sea Fleet to move its Kilo-class submarines from Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk in southern Russia, the UK Ministry of Defense says in its latest war intelligence update. The move comes as Ukraine’s long-range strike capability grows and undermines one of Russia’s key goals for its 2014 annexation of Crimea. Updated at 06:00 BST Ukraine’s armed forces sank a barge carrying Russian troops and equipment across the Dnieper River near Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region, the Kyiv Independent reports. In a statement on Facebook, Ukraine’s military said: “Efforts to build a crossing failed to withstand fire from Ukrainian forces and were halted.” Following Ukraine’s recapture of the Kharkiv region, new details are emerging about the Russian takeover. Luke Harding and Isobel Kosiu traveled to Shevchenkove to talk to locals about their time under Russian occupation. Until last week, a portrait of Vladimir Putin hung on the wall of the mayor’s office in the city of Shevchenkove. There was a Russian flag. Around a cabinet table, a pro-Kremlin “leader”, Andrey Strezhko, held meetings with colleagues. There was much to discuss. One issue: referendum on joining Russia. Another: a new fall curriculum for Shevchenkove’s two schools, minus anything Ukrainian. Strezhko’s ambitious plans were never realized. On September 8, the armed forces of Ukraine launched a surprise counterattack. They quickly recaptured a section of territory in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, including Shevchenkove. Most residents greeted the soldiers with hugs and kisses. Strezko disappeared. He is believed to have fled across the Russian border, along with other associates. You can read the full report here: A wall where a Ukrainian trident was torn down during the Russian occupation of Shevchenkove. Photo: Daniel Carde/The Guardian
